Education Law

Education in the spotlight

BoardBuzz is very excited that NBC will be putting education in the spotlight by hosting an Education Nation this fall and hopes it will serve as important dialog for advancing public education.

But why an educational summit? Why now?

The educational statistics NBC presents in promotion of this summit paints a bleak picture on the state of public education.

However is this really the case? 

Jim Hull, of our very own Center for Public Education, has provided a breakdown of why some of the data NBC is using could be misleading.

NBC makes two basic claims that Hull has concern with. One, U.S. students perform poorly in math and science compared to students in other countries. Two, the majority of U.S. 8^th graders cannot read at their grade level.

Yes, U.S. 15 year-olds don?t do very well in math and science on the international assessment PISA but U.S. 4^th and 8^th graders compare quite favorably to their peers in other countries in both math and science on the international assessment TIMSS. In 8^th grade math just 5 countries outperformed the U.S. And yes, two thirds of U.S. 8^th graders scored below Proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), but proficient on NAEP is not synonymous with ?reading on-grade level?. NAEP?s proficiency is actually higher than what would be considered ?on-grade level.? So in reality much fewer students are not reading at grade level than NBC has publicized. They would have realized this fact if they did their homework and read the Center?s The Proficiency Data: A guide to NAEP achievement levels.

BoardBuzz knows there are too many schools that are not meeting the needs of all their students. But there are many more public schools that are doing an exceptional job preparing their students for life after high school and we need to learn more from these schools so that all schools can meet the needs of their students and communities. BoardBuzz hopes Education Nation is a productive event  that explores what we are doing right and what areas we can improve on to advance public education.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on July 22, 2010 (boomark / email).